Chocolate Chunk Cookies — These chocolate chunk cookies are made with both chocolate chunks AND chips. These are hands down the BEST chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever made!
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Best Ever Cookies … with Chocolate Chunks!
I’ve been on the quest to find the perfect end-all be-all chocolate chip cookie recipe. And this recipe is as close as I’ve come.
These chunky chocolate chip cookies are so soft, similar to Keebler Soft-Batch Cookies, minus the store-bought taste. And they bake up with the perfect height; not too thick or overly domed and not too thin like flat pancakes.
I stuffed these cookies to the max with both chocolate chips and chocolate chunks. As the cookies bake, the chips retain their shape more than the chunks, which turn into oozing luxurious puddles.
What Makes These Chocolate Chunk Cookies “The Best?”
If you’re looking for an easy, straightforward, chocolate chunk cookie recipe that yields fantastic results, I encourage you to give this one a try. These cookies are as close to my definition of The Perfect Cookie as I’ve come and here are the highlights why I love the recipe:
- No two-day waiting period between making the dough and baking the cookies — and dough chilling is optional.
- No egg plus yolk situation to contend with so nothing is wasted.
- The overall batch size is manageable, about two dozen.
- Each cookie is decent-sized, but not ginormous.
- The cookies get softer, not harder or drier, the next day and continue to stay soft for up to a week.
- The holy grail of cookie qualities are present — thick, puffy, soft, and chewy.
And let’s not forget, there are two kinds of chocolate in every bite! The more the merrier.
Ingredients in Chocolate Chunk Cookies
To make this chocolate chunk cookie recipe, you’ll need:
- Unsalted butter
- Brown sugar
- Granulated sugar
- Egg
- Vanilla extract
- All-purpose flour
- Bread flour
- Cornstarch
- Baking soda
- Salt
- Semi-sweet chocolate chips
- Bittersweet chocolate
How to Make Chocolate Chunk Cookies
The double chocolate chunk cookies come together quickly, although you do have to chill the dough before baking it (no way around it, sorry!). Let’s review how the cookies loaded with chocolate chunks are prepared:
- Cream together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy.
- Add in the egg and vanilla, then stir in the dry ingredients.
- Add the chocolate chunks and chips last, then scoop the dough into balls.
- Refrigerate the cookie dough balls for about 2 hours before baking them.
- Bake until barely golden brown around the edges, even if slightly undercooked in the center.
- Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing and transferring to a rack to finish cooling.
How Long Should You Bake Chocolate Chip Cookies?
I recommend baking 8 to 9 minutes, and not more than 10 minutes, period. I found given the size of my dough mounds, my oven, and my taste preferences, 9 minutes is the magic number for me. Even though the centers will seem underdone at 8 or 9 minutes, as the cookies cool out of the oven, they firm up.
If you wait to pull the cookies until they look done, as they cool they will set up far too firm and crumbly and won’t stay soft and chewy. Don’t overbake.
Cookie Baking FAQs
I used two types of flour in these chocolate chunk cookies, both bread and all-purpose flour. The original recipe just calls for all-purpose but because bread flour adds extra chewiness and since my dream cookie is one with a high degree of chewiness, I utilized a combination of bread flour and all-purpose.
If you don’t have bread flour, solely using all-purpose is fine. Your cookies may not be quite as chewy nor as thick, since bread flour also lends increased structure to baked goods, but they’ll still be plenty good.
Unbaked cookie dough may be refrigerated for up to 5 days prior to baking it, or frozen for up to 3 months
The chewiness comes from the bread flour in this particular recipe (see above for my answer to that FAQ).
To create a soft cookie, you need to use larger amounts of dough. I used about 2.25 ounces dough per cookie. I weighed each mound of dough, but if you don’t have a scale or don’t want to be bothered, that translates to two heaping tablespoons of dough, and with the chocolate pieces dangling off, possibly 3 tablespoons.
I learned when I made those cookies that a larger mass of dough allows the cookie center to remain soft and tender since it never gets the chance to dry out or overbake while the edges crisp up.
I chilled the cookie dough before baking it and always advocate doing so because as dough chills, the flavors marry and cold dough spreads less during baking, resulting in puffier and thicker cookies.
Brown sugar helps cookies stay softer and gives them a richer flavor profile since brown sugar has more depth of flavor than granulated sugar does. Ironically, cookies made with more brown than granulated sugar become softer over time as they absorb atmospheric moisture, rather than drying out.
Where this chocolate chunk cookie recipe veers way off the path compared to any other cookie recipe I’ve ever tried is that it uses cornstarch, and just two mere teaspoons, but enough to work its softening magic. Cornstarch is not only a softening agent, but it’s also a thickening agent. Just as it thickens gravy or soup, it helps to create thick and puffy cookies.
Nope! You may use one or the other, if desired. I was going to make the cookies exclusively using semi-sweet chocolate chips, but I enjoy having a variety of textures and flavors in my cookies, especially when those textures and flavors are of the chocolate variety. I opted to use both semi-sweet chocolate chips and bittersweet chocolate chunks, courtesy of a Trader Joe’s 72% Pound Plus bar.
Recipe Variations to Try
It’s easy to customize this recipe for chocolate chip chunk cookies! You may add up to 12 ounces (roughly 2 cups, but no more) of mix-ins, such as:
- Chopped nuts
- White chocolate chips
- Butterscotch chips
- Diced candy bar pieces
- Dried fruit
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Chocolate Chip and Chunk Cookies
Ingredients
- ¾ cup unsalted butter, softened
- ¾ cup brown sugar, packed (I use light)
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 cup bread flour or all-purpose flour*, See Notes
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt, optional and to taste
- 6 ounces 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 6 ounces bittersweet or dark baking chocolate, chopped into bite-sized chunks (I use Trader Joe’s 72% Pound Plus bar)
Instructions
- To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on low speed until smooth, 1 to 2 minutes.
- Add the sugars and beat on medium-high speed until creamed and well combined, about 3 minutes.
- Stop, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add the egg, vanilla, and beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
- Stop, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add the flours, corn starch, baking soda, salt, and mix until just combined, about 1 minute.
- Add the chocolate chips and chunks, and either fold in by hand or beat for a few seconds on low speed.
- Using a 2-ounce cookie scoop, form heaping mounds weighing 2 1/4-ounces each (weighed on a scale, which is approximately a scant 1/4-cup measure. Dough mounds will look large for their weight because there’s lots of chocolate pieces adding bulk).
- Place mounds on a large plate or tray, cover with plasticwrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, up to 5 days.
- Preheat oven to 350F, line a baking sheet with a Silpat Non-Stick Baking Mat, parchment, or spray with cooking spray. Place dough mounds on the baking sheet, spaced at least 2 inches apart; I bake 8 cookies per sheet.
- Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until barely golden brown around the edges, even if slightly undercooked in the center, noting the tops will not be browned and will be pale. Do not cook longer than ten minutes as cookies will darken and firm up as they cool (The cookies shown in the photos were baked for 8 minutes, rotated once midway through baking, and have chewy edges with soft pillowy centers).
- Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing and transferring to a rack to finish cooling.
Notes
- *Edited to add May 2013 – I prefer these cookies using exclusively all-purpose flour and have stopped baking them with a combination of all-purpose and bread flour. I am leaving the recipe up as I wrote it back in 2012, but note that I prefer all-purpose because the cookies are softer, more tender, and more moist.
- Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months.
- Alternatively, unbaked cookie dough can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days, so consider baking only as many cookies as desired and save the remaining dough to be baked in the future when desired.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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More Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipes:
You can check out all of my chocolate chip cookie recipes HERE.
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Mrs. Field’s Chocolate Chip Cookies (Copycat) — If you’ve always wanted to recreate Mrs. Fields cookies at home, this recipe works beautifully and will save you a trip to the mall.
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The Best Soft and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies — One of my absolute favorite recipes for chocolate chip cookies thanks to a special ingredient! Just one bite and I think you’ll agree!!
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I was wondering if I can leave out the corn starch?
I think I addressed this in the post about what kind of cookie you’d end up with if you left it out. But yes you can leave it out, you just won’t get THESE cookies that will look and taste like the ones shown here.
Do I need to sifted first before adding into batter?
No.
I have made these cookies several times and my family loves them. They are perfect. Thanks so much for sharing, I am so glad I stumbled on to your site!
Thanks for trying the cookies many times and glad you and your family love them!
Hi, Averie! I’ve been lurking on your site for quite some time and after baking these cookies for ummm.. the 5th or 6th time… I really felt the need to thank you for this recipe. a BIG BIG THANK YOU because every time I make them, they come out perfect, soft and chewy but not overly so. I have actually stopped buying chocolate chip cookies from the stores because of your recipe :) Now off to try your other recipes! :)
Thanks for trying the recipe so many times and glad you love them to the point you don’t need to buy storebought cookies anymore…that’s great! Hope you enjoy my other cookie recipes, too. LMK what you try!
Hi Averie! I’ve made your cookies twice in the last two months, they are just the most perfect chocolate chip cookie! I have a perhaps, rookie, question. I’m going to my sisters house for the holidays and we want to bake these together, except she does not have a stand up mixer– is it okay to use just a plain old electric hand mixer? Would rather not travel with my enormous Kitchen Aid mixer, but if need be I will!
Also, is it possible to make these smaller in order to yield more cookies? And if so, should I change the baking temp?
Thank you, thank you for this amazing recipe and all your other delicious recipes.
Happy holidays!
-Erika
is it okay to use just a plain old electric hand mixer? = I always use my KitchenAid stand mixer and it’s probably fine to use a handheld electric but your results may not be exactly the same.
Also, is it possible to make these smaller in order to yield more cookies? And if so, should I change the baking temp? = Yes, no. Just reduce the time, not the temp.
Glad you love these cookies and hope you and your sister have fun baking together!
I’ve followed most of the details on this recipe but it didn’t turn out as what I was looking for:( Have used both all purpose flour and bread flour for the cookies, also added some chocolate drinking powder to replace some of the sugar to make the cookies more chocolaty. But turned out the cookies didn’t spread and flatten, instead remained in the mini dome shape… Could you help on this?
You possibly over-floured them a bit and/or given your baking conditions, oven, etc now you know to just flatten them much more before baking. Baking is trial and error to get things just right sometimes so just play around with the shape of the dough mound.
And I just re-read what you wrote…adding the chocolate drinking powder is what did them in!! That behaves like flour, makes the dough more stiff, and that’s why they didn’t flatten. Follow the recipe exactly as I wrote it and you will be fine.
Disappointing, but since my husband would have to eat all I had made ahead, I was desperate so I placed several in a slightly damp towel for a couple of hours. Worked like a charm. Saved the day!
Wow! Wonderful, chewy cookie. However, I made several batches in advance of the holidays. In order to keep them for two weeks, I put them in a zip lock bag in the fridge. Couldn’t resist temptation to “steal” one – and, ouch! It was brittle. Is there a way to get them back to the “chewy” state?
Storing cookies for 2 weeks in the fridge definitely will kill them and there’s really nothing you can do. You could have FROZEN them and they probably would have fared better, but just in the fridge, nope. It dries cookies out, even if in Ziplocks, so lesson learned. Sorry about that!
Ok, so it’s 2014 but I just discovered this recipe and it read so invitingly that I couldn’t wai to try. I followed it to the letter, both with ingredients and cooking time and was terribly disappointed. They were very dry (after 7 minutes at 340 degrees fan forced oven) and had very little flavour (yes, I write from Australia). The pictures looked so enticing, pity about the end result.
340 fan forced oven sounds like what Americans would call a convection oven. These were baked in a regular, non-convection oven. I think that’s what happened! Therefore in your oven you either need to reduce the temp and/or reduce the baking time. Try again because these are amazing cookies or if you’d like, I have another recipe called ‘The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies’ – search my site or just google (sorry replying from phone and too hard to get you a link) – those cookies may work better for you too.
I just came across your recipe (not sure I will find it again) and fell in love with your chocolate chip cookie recipe. Tried to run off a copy of it but could not do so. Do you have your recipes blocked? All I could get was a bunch of blank pages and then the conversations at the end of the page. You have some lovely looking cookies at the end of the page.
Hmmmm, no I don’t have anything blocked. Did you click on the PRINT button, the small circular button in the R-hand corner of the recipe section? That pulls up a new window where you can easily print. Or, you can just copy/paste the recipe into an email and send it to yourself. Enjoy!
I use a recipte by Martha Stewart and I love it but I’m definately going to try this one too.
My secrets for great cookies are simple:
EVERYTHING at room tempearture. Cold butter does NOT work and do NOT microwave it or try to melt it. The cookie will spread and be very greasy (or so I have found out the hard way). And I always use room temperature eggs.
Parchment paper. You can have the crappiest cookie sheets in the world (mine look like they’ve been through a war) but parchment paper will save them. BJs sells large rolls and I could swear they were a $1 a roll (Reynolds and don’t quote me on that price) – go to the Reynolds website for a $1 coupon.
Chilling the dough before you bake – makes a world of difference.
Use light brown sugar – dark brown has too much molasses, doesn’t bake the same as light brown.
Use fresh ingredients – yes an obvious no-brainer.
I will never go back to any other chocolate chip cookie recipe. Every step in the preparation process felt -right-, like there was a reason to do it just that way and the results more than pay for the extra TLC. Definitely will make again… and again…. and again…
Glad that this recipe is a keeper and that you’ll never cheat on it! And I love hearing that every step in the prep just felt right…love hearing those kinds of details and glad you’re thrilled with the results!
I might add, commendations on ‘milking’ out so much commentary on a single, simple cookie. Who knew one could say so much!